Determining which decisive point to strike

Just because it is a critical decisive point doesn't mean that it is a good objective or point to attack. The best critical decisive points to hit are ones that are not strongly defended and are not prepared to be attacked, and the best critical decisive points are what I call ultimate decisive point. Your goal should be to be able to recognize what the ultimate decisive point is and if it is not lightly guarded to be able to create conditions that make it lightly guarded. If you cannot make the ultimate decisive point weak before you attack it to not to attack it and to instead strike at other critical decisive points that are lightly guarded or are weak, and beat your opponent that way, or through striking at critical decisive points your opponent's ultimate decisve point is weakened and then strike at it.

An ultimate decisive point is a critical decisive point that if taken threatened or destroyed causes your opponent to lose the will and ability to resist the most. That points downfall will cause your opponent to feel defeated the most and will be the loss that causes the strategic decisive group to surrender.

You never want to attack any place where your opponent is strong because if you do then you stand a strong chance of being defeated and of sustaining heavy losses in men, equipment, and resources such as ammunition. So you want to make your goal always to attack critical decisive points, points that if taken greatly reduces your opponent's will and ability to resist, but if have the opportunity to attack that one point that may not even exist, but many times it does exist it is just extremely hard to identify and to find, and it is weak then do it. If you can find and identify the ultimate decisive point and can get to it without having to fight your opponent where he is strong whether in route or at the decisive point then you stand a strong chance of having achieved a decisive victory where you have defeated your opponent while using the least amount of resources possible particulary in the loss of human life on your side and a victory that would of been obtained in the fastest amount of time possible, so swiftly and successfully and the strategic decisive group will surrender and victory will be yours.

I want to give a good example of all this and that being the battle of Gettysburg. In the Civil War the strategic decisive group for the North was the people, if the South could of gotten the Northern people to of lost the will to resist then Lincoln and the United States government would of had to of surrndered and stopped trying to stop the southern states from succeeding. Then the South would of been free because the military wouldn't of acted without the Northern government's permission, and the northern government wouldn't of acted without the long term support of the people. At Gettysburg was a tactical decisive point because it was where the North's Army of the Potomac was, and it was a critical decisive point because if the Northern army would of been defeated at that point it would of greatly reduced the will and the ability of the northern people through the government to be able to resist and stop the south from succeeding and to even have the will to want to continue to resist the south from succeeding. Unfortunately though Gettysburg was a strength of the North where the North was the strongest so it was not a good point to attack. Whereas they had what was possibly an ultimate decisive point open to them. I believe that Washington was an ultimate decisive point and if Lee instead would of marched on Washington, and left Gettysburg and the Northern army where they were, and taken Washington and if they could of captured Abraham Lincoln whose presence in Washington helped make it an ultimate decisive point. Then the loss of Washington and Lincoln would of greatly reduced the North's will to resist and to continue to fight and would of implanted the idea of defeat in the North's mind and would of in my opinion made them willing to negotiate a peace and give the South their freedom in return for an end to the fighting and victory for the south would of been achieved. But instead Lee attacked a decisive point at Gettysburg which was smart in the sense that it was a decisive point that if defeated would of greatly reduced the North's will and ability to resist and would of likely lead to the defeat of the Northern strategic decisive group, being the people's, will to fight but it was the wrong decision because it was not a weak point and was attacking the enemies strength. Also I don't believe that Gettysburg was an ultimate decisive point because its defeat wouldn't of caused the North to give up after its fall and would of taken some more influencing, which would of been easier to come by for the south if a victory at Gettysburg had been achieved, for the North to surrender.

Determining Where or What a Decisive Point is

So as shown in my previous post I have described that in order to defeat your opponent you have to break your opponent's will and ability to resist! But how do you do this decisively, which is quickly, which is through the least amount of time and the least amount of battles. The key to determining what a decisive point is is that it is a point that if defeated, destroyed or threatened, or captured, depending on the circumstances, will cause your opponent to lose the will and ability to resist to some degree. The key is to find the critical decisive point, which is a point that if taken, captured, or destroyed greatly reduces the will and abililty of your opponent to resist and causes your opponent to feeel defeated, and beaten. To do this; first, you have to determine who the strategic decisive group is, and then you have to find the decisive point which is broken into four categories, tactical, strategic, political, regular.

Many times when a campaign is commenced you try to orchestrate a campaign where you can defeat your opponent rapidly, and quickly, in the shortest amount of time. This is the basis behind blitzkrieg which is what the German army used in WW 2 to defeat countries such as Poland and France. By using speed through the use of tanks, and aircraft, and transport vehicles that could move rapidly and over great distances they were able to strike quickly into the heart of a country. This allowed Germany to threaten the government, and destroy the supply lines of the enemy forces, and make the enemy so nervous and scared, because you are behind his army and are threatening his homes and governement and resources, that the opponent loses the will to resist and surrenders. How do you cause an opponent to surrender quickly? Well first you have to define who your oppponent actually is. This is what I call the strategic decisive group. It is either the people, military, or government that opposes you from obtaining your campaign goals. But in order for that group to be the strategic decisive group they have to have the ability to act independently meaning they can't be controlled by the other two groups, and they have to be a group that has the will, which is the reason, the desire, to resist you. So if the enemy's military is attacking you but is under the control of the government then the government is the strategic decisive group because they control the military and have the abilityto stop the military from attacking you so the government must have the will and ability to resist you. The government has the ability by using the military, and the will by not feeling it necessary to stop the military. Or it could be the military who is resisting you but it is the people who have control over the government and through that have control of the military. So it's the people who have the will and the ability, the ability through the military and the will by not caring enough to try to apply enough pressure on the government to stop the military actions.


Once you know who the critical decisive group is then you got to determine which point is important to that group continueing to have the will and ability to resist. These are known as decisive points and can be broken down into four groups which are tactical, political, regular, and geographical. A tactical point is a point that has a group of enemy forces on it, and since some or all of the enemy force is there it is a tactical decisive point A political decisive point is a point that has something of political value, or is of value to the government, or a government agency. Such as a capital building, or a point where politicians are, or a point where that if taken it will limit the ability of the government to rule, or will cause the people to be disheartened such as the constitution being taken or something like that. A geographical decisive point is a point of value because of its geography, such as a hill, a mountain, a ridge, woods, a river, a lake, a ravine, something that if taken gives the side that holds it an advantage, or that limits the ability of the enemy to be able to attack you, or that weakens your opponent or weakens any advantages he may have. It is a decisive point because the side that holds it can weaken the opponent's will or ability to resist or will give an advantage in battle which will weaken opponents will or ability to resist. A regular decisive point is a point that holds something in the wayof supplies such as farming country, factories, warehouses, train tracks, train depots, airport, something that deals with supplies. I would also include cultural points in regular decisive points such as in this country the statue of liberty, because if the stutue of liberty were to be taken or destroyed, and for other cultures there are other points of value in their nations, that it would be a psychological blow that would weaken the will and ability to resist.


Any one of these categories if taken, destroyed, or captured can have an effect on any one of the strategic decisive groups who are in control and can cause them to lose the will and ability to resist. The key to taking a decisive point that causes the opponent to surrender is to find the one decisive point, out of probably the multiple decisive points available, that causes the opponent to loss the most heart and will and desire. To take the point that cause the opponent to feel defeated and beaten and that point is the point that needs to be attacked, and that point is the point that is known as the critical decisive point. A point that if taken greatly reduces your opponent's will and ability to resist and possibly causes the opponent to feel defeated and beaten.


This is the key to having a decisive victory and to having a victory that causes the opponent to surrender. The key is to figure out who your true opponent is by finding out the strategic decisive group, and to figure out what point that if destroyed, taken or captured will cause your opponent to feel defeated and beaten through the loss of will and ability, and will cause your opponent to surrender, and allow you to achieve your military, political, or economic goals and aims of the campaign.